Consecrated to the Heart of the Redeemer under the patronage of the Theotokos and Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.

07 April 2013

Reconciliation: The Church's Vital Sign

One
thread that runs through today’s readings is vitality.After His
resurrection Jesus appears to the Church as one who, despite all appearances,
has all power over sin, suffering, and death.In Revelation, He claims to “hold the keys to death and the
netherworld.”That is authority!While death seems all around us, and
threatens to take us in time, Jesus has co-opted the end of earthly life into
His victory.Physical death thus becomes
the gateway to everlasting life.As a
venerable Christmas hymn declares, “Now ye need not fear the grave: Jesus
Christ is born to save!”

When
Saint John first witnessed the Lord’s bold proclamation, he says that he “fell
at his feet as though dead.” Jesus
stretches out His right hand and picks him up.
As material and spiritual beings, we hear today about other examples of
how spiritual vitality is conveyed in ways accessible to the senses. Jesus conveys the Holy Spirit of forgiveness
and healing by breathing on the apostles as they gather in the upper room. Later, the sick congregate around the
apostles in the hopes that Peter would pass by them—that, maybe, just being in
his presence would do something for them.
All of this supports the Church’s sacraments as tangible vehicles of the
divine life, powered by His Word and operated by His ministers.

Today we
advert to Reconciliation, to Sacramental Penance, as the ordinary means of
forgiving serious sin and remitting its due punishment for the next world. Jesus told the apostles, “Whose sins you
forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” He wouldn’t have said that unless He thereby
invested the apostles with that sacred power.
To this day people approach the precious court of divine mercy in order
to unburden themselves of whatever inhibits their growth in holiness, whatever
cuts them off from God and others.

As an authorized agent of the
Holy Trinity, the priest forgives sins and liberates souls for sacrificial,
Christian love. He takes them, as it
were, by the right—absolving— hand and raises them up. By coming to meet the Lord with genuine
contrition and deliberate intention, the forgiven penitent comes to share in
the vitality of the Lord’s Resurrection in a way that transcends our frail and
deceptive senses. Like Saint John we can
stand up and resolutely return to life with a new approach, although it
requires our prayerful vigilance.

The abiding offer of divine
mercy exhorts us to place our sins with humble confidence in the Lord’s open
side, to let them there, and to life the new life of grace. Don’t let any fears hold you back from a good
Confession, whether weeks, months, or years have passed since the last
one. Second only to the offering of the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Reconciliation is the reason for my existence. And that’s not just because I’m a
priest. Are you not all partakers in the
priesthood by virtue of your Baptism?
Then you, too, live to offer yourselves to the Father in union with the
Son; you, too, live to repent of your sins and to embark upon a daily voyage of
prayer and sacrifice. Through this
belief, may you have life in His Name!